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One of the coolest ecommerce jobs around!

HARRY’S COMMENTS: My partner, Allan Seibert, and I are working with one of America’s largest specialty retailers of pool supplies in their search for a Phoenix, Arizona -based Director of Omnichannel Retention.

You know Arizona, don’t you?

Great place for a pool, don’t you think?

Let me begin this briefing by saying that Allan and I spent nearly two (!!) hours on the phone with the members of this position’s hiring committee. All of them are super nice and extremely knowledgeable. If you’re an A-player, they are your kinda people.

About the Company

The client is the largest and most trusted direct-to-consumer brand in the highly advantaged (and fragmented) pool and spa care industry. I say “advantaged” because the industry is VERY large and offers recurring revenue potential on many of its products and predictable growth.

One pays for upkeep on one’s pool like one pays for pet food: Over and over again.

During my kickoff call, the hiring manager did a first-rate job of explaining to me exactly HOW this business makes money. I had THREE “man, I wish I’d thought of that!” moments — versus the ONE such moment I have in ‘normal’ kickoff calls.

Bottom line: My client’s business is an integrated ecosystem of products and services (contractual and non-contractual), each of which individually has excellent scale and reach — yet taken collectively, positions the firm as a total solution provider with a massive addressable market and a clear path to growth.

Now then: Raise your hand if you own a pool.

(Raise your hand if you ever thought about owning a pool!)

You’re not alone. There are roughly five million inground swimming pools in the USA, with 40 percent of those in Florida and California.

I own a pool. But despite the costs, it’s worth it because my wife and I have six kids. And they have friends. And my wife and I work from home. And it gets hot in Georgia.

Lemme give you a few quick tidbits about the pool biz:

When Covid hit in 2020, my client sold every above-ground pool they’d bought for the year by May 30th. Why? Because suddenly everybody thought …

“Oh boy, we’re not taking our summer vacation this year — and now our community pool has closed for the summer. I could either invade my neighbor’s space to use their pool or drop $1,800 on a pool for my own backyard.”

What would YOU do?

Exactly!

Which is why the pool business is a goldmine: Annual pool installations represent over $10B in estimated lifetime demand for pool supplies, which includes spa purchases and order backlogs. Ka-CHING!

About the Role

This position will require you to relocate to Phoenix, EVEN THOUGH you will have the ability to work from home two (2) days per week, depending on what’s happening at work. This is a very high visibility position that will require you to collaborate with multiple teams, socialize your ideas with executives, and basically “work the building.”

We’re looking for an omnichannel retention Director who really understands all aspects of omni-channel retention with an emphasis on the digital components. Meaning, you must be able to work cross-functionally, which in this client’s case involves multiple teams, categories, product lines, marketing media, and lines of business.

On a daily basis, you’ll need to review the available data, and determine quickly where the issues are, and then build a business case or a roadmap around 1/ What’s being done right, 2/ What’s being done wrong, and 3/ What should be optimized (and by whom, when, and how).

Doing this will successfully require you to prioritize an “order of operations” for tackling these issues. The job is really about developing and executing an integrated growth-oriented strategy around loyalty, email, and SMS — and then coordinating those with several traditional retention channels like the client’s print catalog.

Naturally, the client would expect you to review its process for segmentation and customer data capture, and then leverage those improvements into its ability to target specific customer cohorts.

Given the size of its house file, you’ll need to assess how the firm’s targeting and engagement process can be automated and optimized, and where/how/when the firm should improve its personalization efforts.

Primadonnas need not apply.

One of the things that encouraged us to take this search was the hiring committee: These are SUPER smart yet down-to-earth people with massive amounts of experience. You will not have to speak slowly to these folks, nor will you need to repeat yourself. They are all VERY well acquainted with the benefits of loyalty, retention, and reactivation.

Their support for this position was obvious to us.

What they’re looking for is an equally smart, collaborative business-oriented, analytically-biased, low maintenance, reality-based, omnichannel retention marketer who can get stuff done in a way that’s “hard on the issues and soft on the people.” Because theirs is a large organization with a culture that feels flat.

This is a strategic role where you will be driving the vision. However, you will also be required to ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES as a player-coach. You cannot be above doing the actual work when the situation dictates.

You won’t believe how much we know about this search …

I spent a ton of time on the phone with the client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things I can share with highly qualified candidates include …

1. The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
2. The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every ecommerce job has these — and this one’s no different.
3. What your average day/week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard ecommerce job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
4. The leading and lagging KPIs that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you’ll keep score.
5. The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this ecommerce job.

I have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. My industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT Allan Seibert, at (706) 318-1196 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.

View Harry Joiner’s profile

Essential Competencies:

• Have a strong foundation in DTC businesses (online and brick & mortar) and a passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences.
• Use customer and marketing data to turn business goals and priorities into marketing campaigns to acquire and nurture new customers, retain existing customers, win back lapsed customers, and increase customer lifetime value.
• Drive the yearly and long-term customer vision and growth plan to meet retention targets, drive revenue, and support overall brand health.
• Develop annual CRM and loyalty program executional plans and tactics, in-line with key brand moments and launches and with a clear communications calendar and promotional levers.
• Experience leading the strategy for email campaigns, including template designs, cadence, and content. You will have a team but will be expected to be an in the weeds leader.
• Work at the strategic level to define retention strategies across all mediums, including traditional, digital, and organic. Leverage both direct reports and matrixed capabilities in media channels and analytics to accomplish goals.
• Drive incremental revenue and transactions while improving relevancy and customer connection through experimentation and personalization.
• Harness technology for programmatic personalization at scale, utilizing APIs, machine-learning models, and behavioral data to improve customer relevancy and revenue impact.
• Identify opportunities to grow and evolve the loyalty program and help lead the execution.
• Support management of push notification and proprietary mobile app efforts to complement email contact strategies.
• Contribute to the strategic plan of increasing market share and improving quality of service.
• Firm grasp of the core drivers of business to implement simple solutions to complex problems.
• Meet financial objectives through annual budget preparation and ongoing forecasting and results analysis. Build measurement framework with reporting to quantify impact, identify trends, and track key initiatives, partnering with analytics team on ad-hoc analysis and deep dives.
• Develop a more advanced segmentation, automation and personalization strategy to facilitate a more one to one engagement with the consumer.
• The right candidate will also thrive in an efficient, highly entrepreneurial, fast-paced, collaborative environment where people are driven and enthusiastic.

Qualifications:

• 7+ years of marketing experience, BA/BS degree in marketing — MBA preferred
• 5+ years of experience managing email, loyalty, and CRM marketing plans
• Experience in performance marketing, with an emphasis on personalization and experimentation and an ability to learn new technologies, products, and systems quickly
• Robust analytical skills — previous experience with large amounts of data, identify trends, and pursue the right questions that lead to constructive action
• Proficiency with analytics tools and web traffic reporting (GA360), and ability to do deep data analysis and drive recommendations to senior leadership
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to collaborate effectively at all levels to meet business goals
• Exceptional organizational, planning, and project/program management skills with strong attention to detail
• The ability to creatively resolve issues — understanding business constraints of resources, budgets, and timelines — while remaining adaptable and flexible
• Solution-oriented with excellent time-management skills
• Experience with advanced Segmentation and Automation
• Willing to roll up sleeves and work with teams whenever needed
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment while prioritizing tasks and meeting timelines with minimal oversight
• Experience managing a team of direct reports
• A test and learn mentality
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and planning skills
• Demonstrate a willingness to take well-measured risks
• A sense of humor, a positive attitude, and a willingness to adapt